One of my greatest pleasures in my job is seeing peoples' lives changed from the time of our first meeting to the time of our subsequent meetings.Last summer I was driving in my patrol car when I looked beside me to see a girl driving her car with that "straight ahead felony stare". Seated beside her in the passenger seat was a man who appeared to be either passed out or unconscious...and based on the size of the large smash in the windshield, my guess was that he was unconscious.
When I stopped them, I walked up to the car and noticed her face and legs were covered in blood...and his knuckles were shredded and bloody too. She was blitzed...and he was even more blitzed. They had earlier gotten into an argument because jealousies arose, so he punched the windshield and then smacked her around a bit.
I arrested both of them for various crimes. The girl was taken to a nearby hospital in an ambulance due to her extremely high blood alcohol level, but I had the great fortune of driving the guy in my patrol car to the same hospital due to his extremely high blood alcohol content as well.
On the way there, this guy (Steve) mother-F'd me up one wall and down another...called me everything but a gentleman...threatened to kick my a** (which he never followed thru on, by the way)...scolded me about having a small dick (I have no idea how he knew this one!)...and topped it off by peeing on my seat and floorboards, laughing the entire time.
Nice guy, eh?
Well, fast forward to Super Bowl sunday 2010. If I had to work, somebody was going to jail...and I thought of just the right person to go there! You guessed it! By this time, I had a multi-count arrest warrant for him, so I went hunting him down with a couple good officers from a local police department.
Long story short -- we tracked him down. Before we caught up to him though, we got information that he was hanging with one of his buddies at his buddy's house nearby. We went there, but Steve was long gone because his father called him and told him the State Police were looking for him and he was F'd! (Funny stuff...true story!)
When I searched the buddy's house, I opened a locked room and the first thing I saw upon entering was what was in the picture you see above. It was a huge (weighed at least 5 pounds and was about a foot and a half long) meat cleaver wedged between the bedrail/frame and the boxspring mattress. Thankfully, Steve -- the guy who wanted to kick my tail last summer -- wasn't there to meet me with the cleaver.
Anyway, after Steve ran around the block a few times, the locals found him on a side street. He ran about 15 feet before they tackled him.
Once I arrived where they found and arrested him, I transferred him over to my set of handcuffs and placed him in my patrol car...the same one he peed in about 6 months prior. When climbing in, Steve says, "Wow, I've never been in this police car before. Man, I peed on your seat last time you arrested me, do you remember that? (Like I'd forget, right?) Dude, I'm such a dick, I'm sorry, man."
Wow!
On the way to the jail, Steve and I had a long conversation about life. He said he needed prison time so he could get himself cleaned up from his disastrous addictions. "My life is done, man. I'm finished. I'm a loser. I'm just gonna jump off a bridge one day and end it all."
"Do you believe in God, Steve?"
"Yeah."
"What do you think will be the outcome after you die and stand before Him?"
"I'm F'd."
"Well, while you're still alive, you have a second chance...not only to clean up your physical problems, but to be in right standing with God. But once you're dead, there are no more chances, Steve."
The conversation continued and I took a few minutes to explain the gospel of Christ to him in terms of a criminal needing a defense attorney when standing before a judge. Big tough Steve, tears in his eyes, quietly whispered through a quivering chin, "Thank you", but wouldn't look at me. I understood.
He accepted a bible I offered him (a gospel of John I keep in my car with me, available through The Pocket Testament League). When we arrived at the jail, I had a little bit of paperwork to do, so I left him handcuffed to a holding bench. When I returned about 5 minutes later, Steve was seated on the bench quietly reading the gospel of John. When I returned with the jailer another 5 minutes later, Steve, still reading, asked the jailer, "Can I take this in the cell with me?"
These are the moments that give me great pleasure in my job -- meeting people who recognize their badness and their need of a Savior. I love to see positive changes in people, however slight. It is a sign that God's Spirit is dealing with them.
God, please save Steve. Right now. In jail. Holy Spirit, may your Word pierce the deepest, most wounded recesses of his soul.




